


all this and heaven too

by helenecixous



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Bonfires, Dress shopping, F/F, Fluff, Getting Together, Infidelity, Mutual Pining, i am very gay and projecting like hell, it's ok though bc sam's a knob, sharing a bed by accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 19:02:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7813510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helenecixous/pseuds/helenecixous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's talking to the room, and even though you're near the back and there's a sea of students between you both, her eyes keep finding yours, lingering on you until you squirm. In return, you keep your gaze fixed on her; on her dark skin, her arms, her hands, the curve of her throat and the dip of her waist, and the next time she meets your gaze she's smirking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all this and heaven too

She's talking to the room, and even though you're near the back and there's a sea of students between you both, her eyes keep finding yours, lingering on you until you squirm. In return, you keep your gaze fixed on her; on her dark skin, her arms, her hands, the curve of her throat and the dip of her waist, and the next time she meets your gaze she's smirking. You and Frank both introduce yourselves to the students, and you want to grin as poorly guarded expressions varying from terror to anger to amusement descend on their faces, and you notice that there’s more quiet awe in the room than there had been last year. She dismisses them, and by extension you, and you take a few seconds to wonder what you’re going to cook up for tea when you get home.

“Bon,” Frank says, catching your arm as you turn to leave. He's grinning, and he inclines his head back towards Annalise. “Her majesty has requested you.”

“Has she?” you ask, craning your neck to glimpse her. “I didn't hear anything.”

Frank says nothing, just propels you through the slowly dispersing crowd and gives you a gentle shove towards Annalise. You find your footing and turn to glare at him, but all you get is the back of his head and a faint smell of some awful too-strong aftershave. “Annalise?”

She looks up from the paper she's scribbling notes on, and for a horrible second you entertain the possibility that Frank had been taking the piss and you're about to get quietly bollocked into next week for disturbing her for no reason at all. She's watching you, and you flirt with the idea of murdering Frank and dumping his body in some lake in the middle of nowhere, before you realise that her gaze is most definitely not fixed on your face. You blush, resist the urge to fidget, and clear your throat. “Frank said you wanted me.”

“Yes,” Annalise says, her eyes returning to yours again. That’s all she says for a long while, and you stay still, expectant. You wonder if it’s a power trip, whether she’s testing you, testing the influence she has over you, and you’re wondering what she expects or wants you to do when she speaks again. The room is empty, her house, empty, and the seconds before she speaks are filled with the kind of silence so deafening that it makes your head spin. “I need a favour.”

Of course she does. That’s the thing about Annalise; she always needs favours. You straighten, and nod, indicating your availability without using words. She doesn’t like it when you use too many words.

“It’s Sam’s birthday today,” she says, sitting back in her chair and putting the pen down, and she absently rubs her collarbone, her fingertips nudging the shoulder of her dress to the side. You swallow, and nod. You did know, had heard it talked about in passing. “I’m throwing a party.” Her tone tells you everything you need to know; that she would literally rather do anything than have Sam’s family in her house and have to play the part of a doting wife in awe of her painfully average husband.

“That sounds fun,” you offer, flashing her a small smile. She appreciates it, returns one of her own, and rolls her shoulders back as she stretches.

“I need a new dress, I think. Feeling good is probably the only way I’m ever going to get through the night.”

You falter, not entirely sure how you tie into this. You’ve gone to parties in her place before, made excuses for her and spent hours apologising to hopeful academics who had turned up specifically to meet her, but it isn’t as though you’d be able to go to her husband’s birthday for her, and honestly you’re not sure whether you would even if you could. There’s something about Sam that rubs you up the wrong way.

“Will you come with me?” Annalise asks. “I’ll need a second opinion, and Frank would be rubbish.”

You smile, and this one’s more natural, more genuine. She looks a little surprised, because it isn’t easy to coax a proper smile from you. “Of course,” you say softly, even though you know that she has more dresses upstairs than she knows what to do with. You’ve been in charge of her dry cleaning before, taking dresses that probably cost more than a month’s rent for you back and forth between the shop and her house, and you’d been careful enough each time to not put a single crease into anything.You figure that she probably just wants time out of the house, if she has to spend all night here too, and you’re not about to complain.

She stands, looks at you for a second longer as though she has something else she wants to say and then thinks again and moves away. “I’ll pick you up at five?” she asks, and you nod, already looking around for your bag.

 

The lights in the shopping centre are characteristically unforgiving, and you’re beginning to regret your decision to not wear your trusted flats. Annalise doesn’t seem to know what ‘casual’ means, because even the grey jumper she’s wearing over some black jeans looks like it’s cashmere, and you’re willing to bet that the jeans came from some designer store too. But still, she looks as incredible as always, and you find yourself walking half a step behind her and wondering how in the hell she’s walking in heels so high as she talks to you in a low tone. When she talks to you like that you’re not entirely sure what your stomach does but it feels like a vaguely life threatening flip, and it’s probably because she’s quiet enough to make you lean closer in order to hear her clearly, and you love how private it feels. You’ve also not seen or heard her use it to talk to anybody else, but that’s beside the point. She stops, runs her fingertips over a long sleeved red dress thoughtfully before she turns to you, a question half formed in her eyes.

You step forward, pull the dress towards you, and shake your head. “Good colour,” you say, letting the fabric slip through your fingers. “But I don’t think long sleeves are really your best bet.”

She arches an eyebrow, and then shrugs, moving on. Not even two minutes later, an eager assistant appears by her shoulder. He asks if he can be of any help, and when she tells him that you both have it under control, he nods, and offers you both a flute of champagne. She thanks him and takes one, so you do too, and he hangs behind as you both move on.

 

You say blue, she says red, but between you both you manage to pick out a selection that she likes. The assistant points you in the direction of the changing rooms and you follow her there before carefully handing her the dresses and sinking down into one of the plush armchairs opposite the spacious cubicles. She hands you her flute of champagne and disappears between the red curtain, leaving you to sip your drink and idly wonder whether the curtains are actually made of velvet, and for a while all you hear is the soft fizz of the champagne and the rustling of clothing from behind the curtain.

She comes out eventually, smoothing out some non existent creases as she looks at you before she holds out her hands for an opinion. She’s picked the dark blue one to start with, and you smile. It fits her like a second skin, although all of the ones she picked out looked like they were going to be tight. It’s modest, shoulderless, and comes just below her knees, and you think she looks incredible, and you say so.

“I’m not sure,” she sighs, half turning to look at her reflection over her shoulder. “It’s nice, it’s just… nothing special.”

You want to point out that it’s just Sam and his family, that she’ll be wasted anyway because none of them would know a beautiful dress if it punched them in the face, but you do agree. She looks incredible, but she always looks incredible. This dress isn’t anything to rave about.

She disappears behind the curtain again and you imagine her pulling the zipper down, imagine her shimmying it down her hips before you catch yourself and half heartedly snap yourself out of it.

The next two dresses are the same - a little lacklustre, missing that extra something, and the cold lights of the store are beginning to make your eyes water. For the fourth dress, she stays behind the curtain for a long time, and then she calls you. You stand, put the drinks down and step back into your shoes before you slip into the cubicle. She’s standing with her back to you, in front of a mirror, and your breath leaves you in a rush. She’s got one of the red ones on, and for a second you think you might go into cardiac arrest at the rate your heart’s going.

“Can you zip me up?” she asks softly, meeting your gaze in the mirror, and you nod. The dress is backless, every inch of it clinging to her perfectly, and it doesn’t take you long to notice that there’s a small zipper running up her hip. You’re surprised to see that your hands are quite steady as you step forward and pinch the fabric together so you can slide the zip up.

She’s staring at you, and you’re determined not to meet her gaze. It isn’t in a place that would be hard for her to reach, and you’re halfway through that thought when you get distracted by everything she is. You’d like to maybe pin it to one thing, perhaps her hips or her back or her arms or even the gentle curve of her neck, because then it might be slightly easier to compartmentalise and deal with, but right now your head’s just a mess of  _ Annalise,  _ and she’s everywhere. Suddenly the cubicle seems very warm, very cramped, and you think the champagne must have gone to your head right before you realise that you’ve not moved your hands from her hip.

“So, this one then?” she asks, amusement tinting her tone, and you clear your throat, stepping back.

“This one’s good,” you say, reaching up and picking a stray piece of cotton from the shoulder. “Is it comfy?”

She nods, smiles, and steps into her heels, and that’s you done for. You leave the cubicle again, she undresses and puts her own clothes back on, and together you return the other dresses and she pays.

 

You get back to the house and it’s thankfully still empty. She asks you to come upstairs, to help her get ready, and you’re not sure that you’ll be able to handle it after earlier, but she’s already half way up the stairs, expecting you to follow. And what can you do but oblige? You’ve never been able to say no to Annalise and mean it, and you’re not about to start pretending to yourself that you’re morally adept enough to just go home when she’s asking you to help her get dressed. You spend a lot of time gazing at her when you think she can’t see or she isn’t looking, when you should be working and looking for loopholes and ways to help her win her cases. In the end though, she always manages to win, and you always end up flustered and massively appreciative of the kind of dresses she favours.

You shake your head, tell yourself to sort it out, and follow her up the stairs and into her room.

 

You help her into the dress again, trying not to spend too much time staring at the tights that she’s put on. They’re your favourite kind - the ones with the single thin black line up the back of them - and with the dress she manages to strike the perfect balance between sexy and appropriate enough for her stuffy husband’s stuffy family. You’re perched on the edge of her bed, on her side, as you watch her reapply her makeup, and she’s talking to you about the case you’re helping her on right now, and you force yourself to stay focused on what she’s saying. It proves harder than you’d expected, but you're less than surprised. It comes with having a boss who's Annalise Keating. A boss who's quickly becoming more of a friend, and as she turns and flashes you a smile, you start making your excuses to leave. You need to be gone before Sam comes home, and you're quite looking forward to crawling into bed with some Chinese takeout and a shitty romance book that you secretly adore, and as you're thinking this you're suddenly drowning in unexpected and inexplicable pity for Annalise. You can go home and pull on a t shirt that's three sizes too big and has holes under the arms and you can take your makeup off and stretch and climb into bed or spread out on the sofa with a bad book and bad food and even worse TV, but everything about Annalise's life is engineered to be perfect. Her dressing gowns are silk, you know, you've seen them. The meals she cooks are always extravagant, the wine she serves is from her own wine cellar. Annalise doesn't know how to stop, has never been allowed to or taught how to or encouraged to, and for a second you wonder how she copes. But then you realise that you've always seen her class and arrogance as armour, instead of considering that the kind of lifestyle that tires you out and leaves you craving bad beer might be the lifestyle that she loves. You look up, and she's fastening on a necklace, and you stop worrying about her habits and her deepest desires, because when it really comes down to it, you know that Annalise Keating will never be the kind of woman who settles for anything less than everything she wants.

She offers to drive you home and you shake your head, smiling softly. “I can’t give you any more distractions,” you say. “I’ve already taken up most of your evening. You need to face this now.”

She smiles, rolls her eyes, and sighs. All at once her demeanor shifts, she becomes your boss again, the woman who wins cases and who is trapped in a bitterly loveless marriage, the woman who knocks back vodka shots like it’s water and sees life as a battle she has to win. She mentions something about the witness statements you need to have ready for tomorrow, and that she wants you and Frank to be at the office for eight in the morning to sit in on her lecture. You nod and duck out of the house before Sam or his relatives arrive, and turn on the porch to look at her again. You want to tell her that she looks amazing, that the night probably won’t be as bad as she’s expecting, but the words die before they even make it to your lips. Instead, you just raise your hand in a half wave and pull your coat tighter around you in a fairly futile attempt at staving off the cold and what feels like the promise of rain, and you leave.

You enjoy the walk home, but this time it feels slightly different. Most of the time you drive, but this time it feels like you’ve grabbed your friendship - relationship? - with Annalise carelessly, and with each step you make it slips a little further until you get half way home and the warmth you felt while you were with her falls from you and shatters on the pavement that’s darkened with rain, and leaves you wondering where exactly you stand with her now.

 

Your question is answered for you over the next week. Annalise gives you no hint of how the birthday party went, says nothing about shopping with you, doesn’t talk about Sam or to Sam around you. He’s acting completely normal too, and it’s with a surge of disappointment that seems to come from nowhere that you realise they could’ve worked things out between them.

Frank notices a change in you, one that you’re not even conscious of yourself. He finds a quiet moment while Annalise is on the phone, grabs your elbow and steers you into the kitchen under the pretense of getting coffee. He leans on the counter and looks at you, one eyebrow raised. “What’s up with you?”

You’ve got a plethora of excuses ready, have been waiting to deploy them since you first noticed him staring at you earlier in court. You shrug, and you’re surprised when the truth bubbles up and fills the space between you both. Once you’ve started talking, you’re not sure you’ll ever be able to stop. Your tone is hushed, and you explain everything, everything but the lingering touch on her hip. You’re not sure you could stand to see the smug look on his face and hear the sleazy comments he’d inevitably make.

He surprises you, though, manages to act like he gets it. Of course he doesn’t, can’t get it completely, because not even  _ you  _ get it completely, but he’s smiling as he pours you both a drink. “I think there’s more to it than you’re willin’ to see,” he says, nodding along to his own words, and if you weren’t feeling so glum you might have laughed at him.

“Is that so?”

“I’m serious, Bon,” he says, handing you a mug of steaming coffee. “I think she wants to get to know you, like, get closer to you. Only she doesn’t really know how, ‘cos she ain’t very good at that, is she?”

You know he’s right, but you hate the way he says it, as though Annalise is something less than brilliant, something to be laughed at. You’re surprised when a fierce urge to defend her floods through you, drowning the small bit of subtlety that’s left that you’ve been clinging to, and you glare at him as you cross the kitchen and from the cupboard pull out a bottle of Bailey’s to add to your drink.

He raises his eyebrows, and you’re not sure whether it’s because of your sudden and obvious shift in demeanor, or the alcohol, and you decide that you don’t care.

“Fuck off, Frank,” you say, not entirely pleasantly. There’s that ice and poison creeping into your tone, the kind you spent years trying to disguise, and you almost wince before reminding yourself that he deserves it.

He holds up his hands in a kind of surrender and leaves, and you stir your coffee slowly, wishing you knew what was going on inside Annalise’s head, wishing that you had half a chance with her.

 

It’s been sixteen days since you went shopping with Annalise, (not that you’d been counting), when she calls you. And that’s funny, because it’s ten thirty of a Friday night, and most weekends you don’t have anything to do with her - not unless you’re already working on a case that’s urgent. You’re wearing a shirt that might have belonged to an ex, and you’re nursing some shit beer and takeaway that is lukewarm and too greasy when your phone starts buzzing, and you answer it without checking the ID first.

“Hello?”

“Are you at home?”

You suck in a breath, your heart involuntarily leaping. “Annalise? Um, yes, yeah I’m at home.” You sit up, properly, pull your knees up to your chest. “Is everything okay?”

There’s a beat, and then she says: “I’m outside.”

You jump up like someone’s plugged you into a live socket, and you run over to the window. It’s true, she is. Your cheeks heat up as you look at the car idling outside your flat, and you consider what you’re wearing, and decide that you’d actually rather die than have her see you like this. Before you can offer any kind of lame excuse, she speaks again.

“I need you, Bonnie.”

You nod, turn away from the window and find some jeans. “Just- give me a minute,” you say. “I’ll be there in a minute, Annalise, okay?” You hang up, and pull on some black jeans and a hoodie. There’s no time to bother with dresses and heels, and as you screw your feet into some trainers you almost stop to consider why you’re prepared to drop everything for a vague phonecall, but you’re out of the flat before that thought is finished.

You get into the car, and she turns to look at you. Her makeup’s immaculate, of course, but something about her seems off, and it makes you uncomfortable. “Is everything okay? What’s happened?” you ask, and she kills the engine.

“Something’s come up,” she says. “And I need you to work on this with me over the weekend.”

You hope you don’t come across quite as flushed as you feel, and you nod slowly. “All right,” you say, your fingers curling around the doorhandle. “Let me go and get some clothes.”

“Good idea,” she says, flashing you a small smile. “You stink of takeaway.”

 

You throw some clothes into a bag and decide that you’ve got enough time for a quick shower before you leave, and when you’re done you chuck on some mascara and lipstick and make half an attempt with your outfit. You leave the flat, lock up, and take a second to appreciate the full autumn moon before you get back into the car, shivering slightly and rubbing your hands together to warm them.

“Done?” she asks you, and you’re glad for the excuse to look at her. The moon is behind her, and it’s giving her an almost ethereal glow, and when she starts the engine and turns to face the road the moon gets caught in her eyes and you could actually cry about how beautiful she is.

“Done,” you confirm softly, shifting in your seat to get comfortable. There’s a slight lurch as she pulls off, and you let yourself relax. “So, what is it we’re doing?”

She explains that she has a client out of town, and she gives you a brief rundown of the case. “She called me a few hours ago. I said I’d take it, but this Johnson case we’re picking up on Monday is going to end up taking up most of our time. So I got this one fasttracked. We’ve got until Sunday.”

You nod, absently picking at your fingers as you listen to her. “Is Frank busy?” you ask.

“Frank? God knows.” She glances at you, an eyebrow raised. “Have you ever spent a weekend alone with Frank? I don’t like to think that I’m capable of anything so bad as murder, but I don’t think I’d be able to make any guarantees after another one.”

You laugh, lean back in your seat and look out of the window, and let a comfortable silence fall over you both, and it doesn’t take long for your eyes to close and to let the road noise lull you to sleep.

 

“Bonnie.” It's less of a word, more of a sound, but it drags you up from sleep slowly. You float near waking, not quite managing to break the surface as you stir, slowly coming around and noting the lack of noise around you. “Bonnie.” There's a gentle hand warm on your shoulder. “Wake up, we're here.” It's probably that that does it - when will you not take an order from Annalise? You open your eyes, finally pulling yourself up into some semblance of consciousness. 

“Hm?” you mumble, your liquid brown eyes meeting hers, and your falter even in your drowsiness because she looks so  _ fond  _ of you as you force yourself to sit up properly. “We're here? Sorry, Annalise-”

She smiles, reaches over and uses the pad of her thumb to wipe your temple gently, where your eye had watered. “Your eyes are gorgeous,” she says thoughtfully, and then she unbuckles her belt and you're so taken aback that she gets out of the car and opens the boot before you've managed to formulate a half coherent thought and gather your wits about you enough to get out and follow.

You see in the darkness that you're at a small hotel, and that Annalise is holding both your bag and her own, waiting for you. You join her, and she starts walking up the gravel drive, and you follow, never having felt so clumsy in your life. You're practically staggering your legs are so dead from the journey, and on a normal day you might have cursed Annalise under your breath and marvelled at how she's walking as she normally does - striding, even - in tall heels and a pencil skirt, but tonight you're half asleep still and reeling from her compliment and more than happy to focus on the purposeful sway of her hips and the curve of her calves. You realise then that you'd probably follow her to the ends of the earth and think it was the most glorious job in the world, as long as she was there. 

 

You're sitting in the small and cosy lobby with the bags as she checks you both in, and you know better than to spend too much time thinking of sinking into some soft sheets and getting some good sleep before tomorrow, because it wouldn't be unlike Annalise and it wouldn't surprise you if she was to turn around with the keys and tell you that she wanted to give you a full briefing and three errands to do before either of you went to bed. You wonder, not for the first time, when she ever finds the time to sleep. You yawn widely and rub your temple as you flick through your phone lazily, and you don't notice Annalise come back until she sits down in front of your, her expression unreadable. 

“What's wrong?” you ask, and she sighs. 

“We've only got one key.”

Apparently the hotel had mistaken the booking of two singles for a double, and it's impossible to change as all of the rooms have been reserved already. Annalise doesn't seem particularly fazed, but you feel like you're in space and you've suddenly been untethered. Sharing a bed with Annalise Keating? Zero gravity. Even as you smile and shrug and tell her it's no big deal, you're trying desperately hard not to think about the fact the only pyjamas you've ever owned, and thus the only ones you packed, are oversized shirts. You decide not to sleep for the entire weekend.

 

The room, it turns out, is huge. Huge enough for another double bed to fit in there, easily, but Annalise really doesn't seem to care as she starts unpacking both bags. You perch on the edge of the bed, and you let out a nervous titter.

“Just our luck, hm?” you ask, standing and kicking your shoes off before you move to help her unpack. 

She just smiles by way of response, and says something like she's going to shower and that you probably both should get some sleep. You nod, and suddenly you want to ask about Sam, and you want to tell her that you’re in love with her and that you would treat her a billion times better than he does - you want to tell her that she deserves the entire world and more, that she means more to you than she knows, and you're overcome with the urge to hold her. You want to know how she feels, what it's like to draw her to you and wrap your arms around her and be wrapped up in her, you want to feel her breathing against you, and by the time this particular train of thought shudders to a stop she's already moving away into the bathroom.

You sigh as the door clicks shut and the water starts running, and you pull your clothes off, changing into the t shirt you'd grabbed (and you're devastated - it's fucking  _ Ghostbusters,  _ of all the t shirts you own). You find some spare sheets in the cupboard and start laying them on the floor at the foot of the bed. You're half way through this when the bathroom door opens and Annalise emerges, a fluffy towel wrapped around her. For a second you're distracted by her arms and collarbones, and the small drops of water that are racing down the skin you can see, but then she raises an eyebrow and asks you what you're doing. 

“I didn't know if it'd be more comfortable for me to sleep on the floor, I really don't mind.”

She stares at you as if you've grown an extra head, and you shift slightly, unsure of yourself. “Bonnie, this bed’s big enough for three people,” she says. “You'll freeze down there on the floor.”

You know she's right on both accounts. It's colder than it is in the city, and with nothing but a tshirt and a few sheets you're likely to freeze to death before the morning.

She turns away from you and the towel slips slightly as she reaches her pyjamas, and then she lets it just drop before she pulls the soft fabric on. 

Your cheeks are the colour of hell, you know, and you watch her hang the towel up before she crawls into bed and watches you expectantly. You nod, swallow, and get in the other side, making sure there's a safe and comfortable distance between you both, and she turns off the lights. You think about how many problems it might cause if you ended up sleeping with your married boss, and you reason that it'd probably cause about as many as being in love with her would. She shifts, turns on her side and faces you, and smiles at you through the half darkness. She seems so vulnerable, so bare that it makes your head spin. She's so unguarded, and you don't know what it means.

Softly, she thanks you for coming with her on such short notice, and you don't bother replying. You know she knows that there's not much you wouldn't do for her, and you watch as she closes her eyes and relaxes, muttering something about having a busy day tomorrow.

 

When you wake up it takes you a while to remember where you are. The room is swimming in the pale pink light that tells you it’s still early morning, and when you blink the sleep from your eyes properly you see that you’re in this huge bed alone. And then there’s movement, and some sound that your sleep addled mind can’t define, and you realise that Annalise is sitting at the dresser, papers spread out in front of her, and she’s showered and dressed and you lend a moment or two to wondering how long she’s been up for, and whether or not you’d snored.

“Good morning,” she says, without looking up or turning around, and you feel a blush stain your cheeks.

“How long have you been awake?” you ask, sitting up and stretching.

She hums, and you watch her shrug. “An hour or two,” she says vaguely, finally turning to look at you as you run your fingers through your hair in an attempt at sorting it out. “Sleep well?”

You nod, and instead of making eye contact you slide out of bed and grab some clothes to take to the bathroom. By the time you’ve finished showering and dressing and sorting out your hair and putting your makeup on, by the time you emerge from the bathroom finally feeling presentable, she’s laying on her stomach across the now made bed. She looks up, and pats the space beside her, and you join her hesitantly.

“Pass me my phone?” she asks, and you do, and she smiles. “I think I’ve just won us our case.”

You blink at her. A weekend away for something she’s managed to solve in a matter of what - hours? You hate that you’re not even surprised. You roll onto your back and watch the puddles of light dance across the ceiling, and she makes phonecalls to god knows who, and you pay no attention at all. She finishes, hangs up, and you can feel her eyes on you.

“Have you really sorted it already?” you ask, turning your head to look at her, and she’s all soft edges and small smiles and warm eyes.

She nods, and bites her lip as she grins. “It’s not even going to court,” she says, and you catch a waft of her perfume and think you could die right now and be the happiest woman on the planet. “If you’re gonna completely invent a crime, it’s probably not best to blog about it in detail.”

She starts laughing and you join in, because everything about this situation is ridiculous. It’s like a bad episode of a romcom that’s trying to be savvy with law, written by someone who has no idea how that system, or indeed any other system, actually works. Once you’ve both stopped laughing you look at her again, and you arch an eyebrow expectantly.

“What now?” you ask, and she shrugs. “Are we… going back?”

She shrugs again, and shifts, and suddenly her thigh is touching yours and there’s miles of bed that you could move to, but don’t. You feel like you’re pushing your luck, just slightly, but you feel like she’s also pushing hers, and between you you’ve reached some kind of mutual standstill.

“The hotel’s been paid for already,” she says. “Why? Do you have plans?”

You shake your head no, and smile. “Isn’t Sam going to miss you?” you ask, and you know that you don’t sound anywhere near as subtle as you’d planned to.

She fixes you with a look that tells you she knows exactly what your motive for that question was, and you refuse to be ashamed. You want to kiss her, and for half a second her gaze roams over your lips, and you involuntarily - you swear it’s involuntary - part them, and she meets your eyes again before she looks back down at your lips, and the thing that your stomach does feels dangerous. You’re close enough to her now to see the small clumps of mascara on her lashes, and the fallout of the eyeshadow that she’s missed with her brush, and you can see the sharp and immaculate lines of her lipstick. You swallow, and her lips are parted and half raised into a smirk, and she reaches out, places her hand on your cheek, and the gesture is so gentle that you close your eyes and you feel the bed shift as she moves closer to you, and when she’s close enough that you can feel her breath on your cheek, you open your eyes again, and she drags the pad of her thumb slowly over your lower lip, and this is the stuff that dreams are made of. She’s looking at you intently, like she’s studying you, and you feel like a butterfly pinned to a wheel, powerless to do anything but breathe beneath her. Her perfume’s all you can smell, her hand is warm against your cheek, and you inhale sharply when she pulls her thumb away and you see your signature red lipstick smudged over it. You don’t think you’ve ever been so tense, and you’re about to close the gap between you both and wrap your arms around her waist and never let her go when her phone starts vibrating.

She gives a small startled laugh, and she has to move because it’s somewhere beneath her hip, and she sits up to answer it and you notice that her eyes are bright and her cheeks are flushed. You struggle to sit up too and as she talks she’s looking at her thumb, and you move so you’re sitting cross legged in front of her. She flashes you a smile and you’re not sure whether it’s supposed to be apologetic or quite what, but you mirror it anyway and fix your gaze in the vague direction of the window.

 

You don’t know whether you’re relieved or bitterly disappointed that you were interrupted, but it does make you laugh when she gets off the phone and tells you that it was Sam. Of course it was. You spend a lot of time over the next few hours quietly resenting his existence, and it makes your heart physically hurt when the happiness seeps out of Annalise, like it had been drained through the phone, and you decide that you’d quite like Sam to die.

You both make smalltalk, decide to stay until Sunday, like you’d originally planned. She makes no comment about the Moment earlier, so neither do you, but when you both find a nice restaurant to eat at in the evening, you find yourself only half listening to what she’s saying as you eat, and paying more attention to the faint red mark that’s lingered on her thumb.

 

When you’ve both finished eating, and she’s had a vodka martini and you’ve had a pint, she suggests that you go for a walk before you go back to the hotel. You agree, because you love autumn, and because she looks adorable with a red chunky scarf around her neck and matching leather gloves on. You settle the bill between you, and you both pull on your layers of jackets and coats and in her case gloves and scarves.

Leaving the warmth of the restaurant is like diving into icy cold water. There’s a bitter wind and the air is so crisp that it hits the back of your throat instantly and makes you cough, and you’re busy looking up at the moon and the stars when Annalise seizes your hand and tugs you closer to her, and she starts pointing out constellations as you walk. If this is how it’s going to be, if you’re always going to be teetering on the edge of almost, you decide that you’re happy. You’re happy to feel her gloved fingers tight around your own, happy to receive her smiles and be surrounded by her perfume and feel her hand warm against your cheek and her fingers against your lips, and to almost kiss her and almost be loved by her. You’re happy with that, because that’s better than nothing.

 

The place is unfamiliar to you both, and there’s no reason for you both to rush. You walk together, hands clasped, mostly in silence, and you alternate between looking up at the sky and down at your feet. It’s a lovely place she’s found, and you’ve been walking for less than half an hour when you come across a bonfire, and she pulls you close enough to it that you can both feel the warmth from the flames, and you’re completely blindsided by the way the light of the fire catches her, frames her, as though it knows she’s untouchable and nothing it can do will enhance the beauty she has already. Half of her is lit golden, and shadows are dancing over her face and in her eyes, and her other half is glowing in the moonlight, and you suddenly understand every tale and piece of art and myth in every religion that describes the sun and moon as lovers, and goddesses, and destructive forces of indescribable enigmatic beauty. She’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, and you know you’re staring at her but you can’t stop.

You say something, and it feels like her name, and she laughs softly, and you don’t care about Sam or the fact that she’s your boss, all you know is that you love her so fiercely that you would do anything for her. Anything at all.

She leans closer to you, and the heady smell of smoke is already clinging to her, and beneath that you can smell her perfume still, and you think that you might cry. With the hand that isn’t holding yours, she cups the side of your neck, and tilts your head up so that you’re looking at her properly, and you know that your eyes are wide and your cheeks are flushed and you’ve never been so desperate for a kiss in your entire life. You abandon caution, and reach up on your toes, and you hold her hip and her eyes are bright as your lips meet, and you kiss her. You’re grateful when she lets go of your hand and wraps her arm around your waist, because you’re actually in danger of falling over, and she draws you close so that you’re flush against her. You’re aware of a small noise that comes from the back of your throat, and you kiss her like she’s the only thing keeping you alive, and her fingers are in your hair and you love her. You love her.

 

You love her.

**Author's Note:**

> ok i did not plan for this to be this long. i'm just projecting tbh i love viola davis so much + annalise belongs w bonnie lbr. i really fckn love them ok Bye.
> 
> title from all this and heaven too by florence + the machine !


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